


Bots and Bees

by Slaskia



Series: Astral Aligned Continuity [50]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alien Biology, Biology, Gen, Human Biology, Miko being Miko, The Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slaskia/pseuds/Slaskia
Summary: One-Shot spin off fic from Trust & Loyalty: Turning Point pt 3.While trying to explain Starscream's condition to the kids, the conversation inevitably evolves into something else.  Team Prime winds up learning more about human biology than they wanted to....
Series: Astral Aligned Continuity [50]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1018518
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	Bots and Bees

**Author's Note:**

> This occurs during Chapter 2 of Trust & Loyalty: Turning Point pt 3, before Wheeljack's PoV scene.

So…the little fleshling, Miko, wanted to know what ‘bond-rage’ was…and she had asked that question with a bit too much _enthusiasm_ for Starscream’s liking.

“Bond-rage is anything _but_ ‘awesome’,” Starscream had growled in response, a few other bots nodding in agreement.

“Well I won’t exactly understand ‘why not’ if you don’t tell me what it is, now will I?” Miko retorted in a smug and very annoying tone.

He growled even louder, starting to wonder if human vocalizers were ‘removable’, when he felt the calming touch of Arcee on his arm. Glancing down at her, he saw that she was shaking his head.

“We may as well,” she had remarked. “So they at least know why you may potentially start attacking friends in future….”

“Wait…this ‘bond-rage’ thing could make you attack your friends?” Miko remarked, to which they nodded. “OK…that _isn’t_ cool…why would he do that?”

“Because bond-rage is condition where the bot affected goes into state of rage,” Ratchet explained. “And they become solely focused on killing everything around them, friend or foe.”

“To add some related context,” Phaseshot offered. “Think of it as your equivalent to the berserker: the ancient warriors of old that go into a similar state. Unaffected by pain, they keep fighting until they or their enemy is destroyed. If they survive, they are freed from that state, until the next enemy presents itself.”

“I seriously doubt what puts them into that state is the same as ours,” Ratchet commented, Starscream nodding with agreement.

“Nay,” Phaseshot admitted. “In this case, the ‘trigger’ can very. For instance, some can enter it willingly in a time of need and others are cursed and have no control on where or when it triggers.”

“The latter sounding fairly close to my current state,” Starscream muttered. “The rage ‘runs out’ after a few moments, but….” He sighed heavily. “If… _when_ …my spark is made whole again…I won’t stop attacking…won’t stop _killing_ until my body is incapacitated or destroyed. And there’s no telling if my immortal spark can just ‘hop’ into an empty chassis….”

“You have no control over it at all?” Miko asked, her fleshly optics wide. He shook his head grimly. “Wow…that’s a real bummer….”

“So what causes this…condition?” Raf was asking.

“The sudden, violent, breaking of a bond between two bots,” Ratchet replied.

“A bond?” Jack echoed. “Is that like…uh….” He was moving a hand in the air in mild confusion. “I want to say ‘marriage’ but that doesn’t seem quite right….”

“A bond…is a special link between two bots,” Jetfire replied. “It comes in a few forms. There’s the twin-bond, formed when a spark splits into two individuals after creation, but before they form their protoform. Most of those are able to sense each other’s wellbeing and emotions.”

“Oh! That can happen with us too!” Miko commented.

“That’s, usually just identical twins,” Raf corrected.

“Whatever!” Miko rolled her optics. “So what other bond types there?”

“There’s the gestalt-bond,” Ratchet answered. “A small team of bots that can combine into a much larger one.”

“Oh! Like Voltron! Or…or…what was that other one?”

“The Power Rangers?” Jack offered.

“Yes! That’s the one!”

Ratchet had the same ‘uh…what’ expression on his face as he did and so did a few other bots.

‘They’re TV shows!” Miko elaborated. “Oldies but goodies!”

“Huh…so that kind of concept is not completely foreign to you,” Ratchet was muttering, looking like he wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing.

“Nope! We come up with all kinds of stuff! You should see the stuff my home country makes!”

“Let’s not!” Jack spoke up quickly. “I’ve heard how crazy-“ He stopped short when Miko glared at him.

“I think we’ll side with Jack on this one…,” Ratchet remarked, Miko huffing with exasperation. “Anyway, it’s the third type of bond that is susceptible to going into bond-rage when the bond breaks. The Conjunx.”

“Just from the name, it sounds rather special,” Jack remarked.

“It is…,” Starscream spoke up softly. “Most of our kind don’t form intimately close relationships, but those that do…may go as far as to perform a deep merge of their sparks.”

“All bonds involve our sparks,” Ratchet elaborated. “Which contains the very essence of our beings…our life force…memories…and so on.”

“Thus, a Conjunx bond is not one to be taken lightly,” Optimus added. “As the process involves…an exchange…of parts of our actual essence between the participants. They, in a literal sense, become a part of each other.”

“Oh, so you were _partly_ right, Jack!” Miko exclaimed. “That sounds _a lot_ like marriage to me!”

“So when that bond is broken…,” Ratchet continued with a cough. “The other half of the bond often passes with them, as they can no longer live without the other. The ones that do survive, are often no longer the same as they were before. Some live in a constant state of depression and those usually end up taking their lives eventually. Others go insane…but not usually in the violent sense….”

“I’m guessing the violent ones are usually the bond-ragers….,” Jack remarked, to which Ratchet nodded.

“Thankfully…they are rare….”

“Like it matters how ‘rare’ they are when just ‘one’ can cause so much death and destruction…,” Starscream remarked bitterly.

“Point….”

No one said anything for about a klik, aside from Bulkhead whom was still trying to get into contact with Wheeljack. Starscream noted the Wrecker was starting to sound concerned…

“So…question,” Miko finally pipped up, looking uncharacteristically serious. “And I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to talk about it, cause you know…privacy thing….”

Why was he getting a bad feeling? Glancing around he saw a few dubious ‘I’m not sure I want to know’ expressions.

“The ones that do the Conjunx thing…are they the ones that make the baby robots?”

Dead silence. Even Bulkhead stopped his communication attempts to turn around with a ‘what did I just hear’ expression on his face. Blank, confused expressions abound.

“E-hem…,” Phaseshot spoke up, looking the least put off by the question. “Cybertronians, from what I recall of Ratchet’s lessons…lack the... _equipment_ to form new Cybertronians within themselves like your kind do.”

Now there was shock…which turned into horror once it fully dawned on everyone what Miko was actually talking about. Bulkhead had quickly gone back to his own task, with a bit more gusto, Starscream noted.

“Wait…are you saying…new humans are…grown inside your bodies?” Ratchet asked, looking a mix between disturbed yet curious.

_Oh thank you for that lovely mental image...._ Starscream felt a bit nauseous now.

“Yep!” Miko confirmed. “Though it requires the parents to have a few ‘romps between the sheets’ if you know what I mean?” Beside her, both Jack and Raf looked a bit uncomfortable.

“Uh…no we don’t….”

“Wait…so you guys don’t have sex?”

“What?” a few bots questioned in unison.

“I _did_ just state they lack that kind of equipment…,” Phaseshot reminded her with a sigh.

“Oh right. Well, it’s kind of like that merging things you do,” Miko remarked. “Only instead of swapping energy…code…whatever your sparks are made of…the guy-“ Her mouth was suddenly covered by Jack.

“Miko! I don’t think Raf’s parents would appreciate him getting ‘The Talk’ by proxy…,” the dark haired human hissed. Miko brushed his hand off and glared, but Jack didn’t back down.

“I pretty much already know what she’s talking about,” Raf admitted with a slight blush, before recomposing himself. “That said…just how _do_ you guys…uh…make more of yourselves?”

“For one thing, it’s not through what sounds like a very invasive process like your species does,” Ratchet grumbled.

“All our kind come from an outside source called the Allspark,” Optimus replied. Starscream was grateful that the Prime didn’t point out there was an ‘exception’ to that. No sense in confusing the fleshlings. “In times past, it would regularly release ‘showers’ of new sparks, which would fly out of the planets core to nestle into the planet’s surface. We build our first protoforms from the very soil of our world. Like the young of many species, we are small and vulnerable, thus require the care and protection of an adult for the first vorn of our lives.”

“A vorn being roughly equivalent to thirteen of your years,” Ratchet further clarified.

“Huh…not much different than our own growth rate,” Raf remarked. “We technically become ‘mature’ between eight and twelve years old on average.”

“’Technically’?” Ratchet echoed, a brow raised.

“Well….” The tiny human was blushing again. “Those ages I cited are when we hit what we call ‘puberty’. Uh…to use your terms…it’s when our reproductive systems become fully formed and activate. However, we, on average, don’t reach full maturity until between twenty-one and twenty-five.”

“ _Physically_ ,” Jack interjected. “Mentally…some never mature.” He yelped when Miko punched him in the arm. “I wasn’t referring to _you_!”

“So you say,” Miko grumbled, folding her arms. “I’m guessing due to the ‘lack of equipment’ you guys don’t go through the horror that is puberty?” She then pointed at Arcee. “Which means _you_ don’t have to deal with ‘that time of the month!’ Lucky!”

Arcee looked understandably very confused. “Why would I go through something everyone else here wouldn’t?” she asked.

“Duuhh…you’re a girl!” Miko replied. “All girls, at least human ones, have to deal with the dreaded _period_!”

The two-wheeler looked even _more_ confused now. Once more, Phaseshot served as a bridge to clarification. “Miko, they’ve already explained how their reproduction methods is completely different from your own…,” he began. “So tell me…why would the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ have the same meaning as yours?”

“Well…why wouldn’t it?” Miko retorted, looking slightly confused. “I mean…for all the alien species in the TV shows…it meant the same thing….”

“Miko, that’s fiction!” Jack exclaimed.

“And many of those made up species are only similar to us because that’s what we are familiar with and can relate to. In reality, intelligent alien species are more likely to look, act and function very differently from us,” Raf explained. “That our friends look somewhat ‘human’ is likely a coincidence.”

“So Star Wars is more accurate in that sense than Star Trek,” Jack remarked, Raf nodding in agreement.

“But many of the aliens in Star Wars look butt ugly!” Miko exclaimed.

“Pfffth…said aliens are likely to think _you’re_ the ugly one…,” Ratchet grumbled.

“Nope! I’d the be ‘universally cute’ one!” She folded her arms with a smug, self-confident air. Starscream rolled his optics as he heard a faint ‘you wish’ from Ratchet. “So you guys don’t have _anything_ like puberty?” she then asked. “No mad hormonal shifts…chasing guys…or girls…waiting to make mini-humans….”

“To be honest…some of that sounds similar to what we call ‘courtship coding’,” Ratchet admitted. “Coding that activates in a bot around fifty vorns, or almost seven centuries in Earth terms. In most bots it triggers a desire to protect the youngest among us and some are driven to find companionship in another.”

“And some of those can be rather…extreme on both…,” Starscream sighed, rubbing his face. “Skywarp, for instance…not only was an early activator…but tried to flirt with almost any bot he saw...and drove _me_ up the wall with his desire to protect me from _everything_.”

“Wait, you’re younger than Skywarp?” Arcee questioned, a curious expression on her face. “I thought you were about the same age, if not older?”

“Only in the _mental_ sense,” Starscream remarked, eliciting a chuckle of agreement from Jetfire. “Physically he’s got about thirty-five vorns on me.”

“So….” Miko’s voice caught their attention. Oh Primus, she had that _thinking_ expression on again! Starscream braced himself. “You guys don’t give ‘birth’…or have ‘periods’…do you guys-“

“I can’t get ahold of Jackie,” Bulkhead announced, cutting Miko off and his voice full of worry. “Doc, is his beacon active?”

There was a brief, tense silence as Ratchet checked the appropriate monitor. “Yes. Looks like he’s in Archway National Park. Doesn’t appear to be in motion.”

“Hopefully he didn’t have a run in with Dreadwing again,” Bulkhead grumbled. “Optimus, permission to head there to ensure didn’t get himself in trouble?”

“Granted,” Optimus stated. “Call us immediately once you find him, or any sign of trouble.”

“Understood.”

Once Bulkhead had left via Ground Bridge, Starscream took the opportunity to stir any further conversation toward finding a secure, confined, place for himself. After all, keeping him from killing everyone was _far_ more important, and less disgusting, than whatever it was Miko had been about to ask….

**Author's Note:**

> Now that I have finished this, I realize I probably could have just had it be part of the main fic itself. Oh well....


End file.
